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What Spore May Spawn
ches_grin writes with "A new look at Spore, including a slideshow that examines the broad influence that the game is expected to exert on fields ranging from law to education. From the article: 'Spore's unprecedented level of user-generated content is sure to send ripple effects through and beyond the video-game world. Could the mass-market game provide the tipping point for the burgeoning retail trend of mass customization? How will it redefine the roles of game designers and publishers alike? We asked a variety of experts to predict the economic, educational, legal, and other effects of the game.'"
These videos might prove to give you a better idea of what the game is all about.
;)
If Robin Williams likes the game, it must be good.
Nice clean printer friendly version. Yum. http://www.businessweek.com/print/innovate/content /jul2006/id20060720_289503.htm
I am the most jaded gamer you can find, but this is a Will Wright game. WILL FUCKING WRIGHT. You know how American McGee get's his name plastered inexplicably onto shipping product? That's hype. Contrast that with a totally white box, save for the words "WILL WRIGHT MADE THIS" printed in bold on the front. That, my friends, is the closest thing you will get to guaranteed quality in the gaming industry.
### How long have we been screaming for fully deformable terrain? When I miss someone with a rocket launcher I want it to take out the fucking wall. Granted the technology hasn't been there
The technology was there back in 1994, see Magic Carpet or XCom:UFO, both have had fully destructable terrain. The throuble is that Doom recieved all the hype and instead of destructable terrain developers focused on developing static maps with precalculated shadows and stuff, which resulted in better locking games, but also games whoes levels simply couldn't be deformed at runtime anymore. The technologie simply moved into a direction that made destructable terrain an hard problem (BSP trees), while it was an pretty easy one before (tilemaps), so gameplay got axed to create flashier graphics.
It's funny that you mention this. I was chatting over lunch with an associate about how I was berated in by an english teacher once at college for playing RTS. His comment was something about the desensitizing nature of the games - I throw waves upon waves of troops against my opponent completely ignoring the causalities of war.
Of course this being college, I pondered the topic, freaked out a bit, and eventually calmed down. It's a freaking game.
Now addressing your aspect about how games are lacking real world actions - yeah that would be nice at some level but really I play games to escape from reality and not mimic it. I would rather not, as a mayor of my simcity, have to deal with clamidia outbreaks, famine, AIDS, resource scarcity, and so on. I want to build a freaking city alright! Lord knows what sort of environmental impact I had on the terrain when I shaped it to my needs, paved over almost all of it, and so on. Don't care, don't care, don't care.
Side note, during lunch we also discussed the genocidal nature of RPGs. I have cooked a few papers on the topic of my character wiping out whole warrens/maps/games worth of kobolds, goblins, and orcs. Once I left a single kobold alive after visiting his people's three-levels-deep home with my +2 vorpol sword of freedom. He was in the corner and was pretty damaged. I glanced around at the blood soaked walls of his people, and felt a pang of pity. Then I noticed I would roll up a level if I killed him. A second later his head rolled along the floor. Yeppie! I leveled up! So this is what Chris Columbus must have felt.
Repeat after me folks - it's just a game.